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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378418">Dethkats</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose'>murderofonerose (atmilliways)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Metalocalypse (Cartoon)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Dethklok as cats, Gen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:15:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,861</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27378418</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/atmilliways/pseuds/murderofonerose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A page to the effect of “Sire, you have to come see this” was never good news. Charles reflected on this internally as five different furry bodies made violent contact with his ankles as soon as he entered the room.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was brought to you by manically avoiding investing energy in minding the election until more of the votes are actually counted.</p><p>And also little-murmaider requested, “Write a fic where Charles, miraculously, gets the day off.“</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A page to the effect of “Sire, you have to come see this” was never good news. Charles reflected on this internally as five different furry bodies made violent contact with his ankles as soon as he entered the room. An attending Klokateer hastily shut the door behind him, but no one seemed particularly inclined to make a run for it out into the hall at the moment. </p><p>The biggest and blackest of the cats—did Maine Coons come in extra large and all black?—propped itself up with a massive paw on one of his knees and let out a disgruntled, “Maaaaaaaaaaaaaoow.” Another cat, a classic purebred Siamese, serpentined between Charles’ feet. </p><p>“Is someone going to explain to me what’s going on here?” Charles asked, looking around at Dethklok’s primary security detail. “Where is the band?”</p><p>“Here, sire,” one of the braver hoods replied, pointing at the milling cats. “Dethklok offended a witch, and she cursed them.”</p><p>
  <span>Charles felt his eye twitch. He also felt one cat—large, raggedy calico-tortoiseshell with yellowish eyes and a squashed-looking face—start to lick and chew noisily on the leg of his suit pants. Another cat with brown markings around the mouth only began trying to climb up his other leg, eyes wide and Siamese blue. At least this seemed to be the slimmest of the bunch, and he was wearing a belt; Charles shook both of them off and shooed them away before the integrity of his clothing became too greatly compromised. </span>
</p><p>Honestly, he’d been half expecting something this absurd to happen ever since the troll incident, and in contact with occult professionals ever since the messy night of cleanup at that satanic church. </p><p>“Alright. Keep them in here for now. You—” he pointed at one of the Klokateers at random “—place an order for cat towers, collars, beds, scratching posts, toys, litter boxes, premium cat food, bowls, et cetera. Everything they’ll need until we get this sorted out.”</p><p>A fierce looking ginger cat with irregular notches in both ears planted itself directly on one of his feet and stared up at him. “Mrow! Mrowowooooow!”</p><p>Charles sighed. “And catnip.”</p><p>He turned to leave, and five of the servants, all wearing thick gloves up to the elbows, each lunged for a different cat before the door was open. When it shut behind him, Charles heard a chorus of plaintive yowls start up; the sound was impressively loud and followed him almost all the way to his office. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Several hours later, he returned because the racket finally </span>
  <em>
    <span>had</span>
  </em>
  <span> reached his office, along with a series of increasingly desperate pages. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Just as before, all five cats made a beeline for his ankles as soon as he stepped in the door. Many of the Klokateers on duty took off noise canceling headphones at his arrival. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have a handful of sorcerers working on a counter curse, and a team out to locate the witch that caused this mess. What’s going on down here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, sire,” came the reply, accompanied by a salute, “the vet has given all of them a clean bill of health, although Lord Meowed—uh, Lord Murderface keeps refusing to use the litterbox. But the vet did recommend doing everything we can to keep them calm, so. . . . Maybe you could stay in here with them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles looked down. The cats had settled in a pile around his feet, each lounging against or atop his Oxfords and purring quiescently. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Definitely Dethklok,</span>
  </em>
  <span> he thought with a sigh. Leave it to them to create a huge problem that disrupted his day </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> made getting work done virtually impossible at the same time. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was, past that point, a fairly quiet afternoon. Klokateers were standing guard outside and would notify him of any outright emergencies, but the cats remembered who had subjected them to veterinary inspection and tended to hiss and growl. </p><p>Charles had a tablet and his dethphone in the vain hope of still getting <em> some </em> work done, but within ten minutes of sitting on the couch the tortico he suspected was Murderface noisily coughed up a hair ball in the middle of the room and he got up to throw it away. When he sat down again, the ginger cat was sprawled across the tablet. “Pickles,” he said firmly, hazarding a guess, and the ginger cat rolled over to show Charles his belly and purred. </p><p>While he was dealing with that, another furry body bumped against his hip and he turned to see the part-Siamese trying to get comfortable on top of his phone. An instant later the Siamese jumped up on the couch and batted imperiously until the part-Saiamese moved, allowing the Siamese to settle into loaf position in that prized spot with a twitch of his long, elegant tail. <em> Toki and Skwisgaar, I presume,</em> Charles thought dryly. </p><p>About twenty-eight pounds of big-boned cat suddenly landed in his lap with an audible thud. Charles grimaced, then hastily shoved a hand under the big black cat to protect his lap from misplaced paws—that much weight focused into three or four small surface areas at a time was a lot, he would probably have bruises on his legs from this later. Then two paws landed squarely on his stomach and shoved most of the air out of his lungs for a moment. He didn’t catch his breath again fully until the cat stopped kneading on him (more bruises) and settled into a loose crescent across his lap, staring up at Charles with striking green eyes. </p><p>Bemused, Charles stared back. “. . . Yes, Nathan? Something I can do for you?”</p><p>The cat blinked slowly, then laid his head down and tucked his nose under one leg. Charles didn’t know a lot about cat body language, but he suspected this one was screaming, <em> It’s time for my nap now, so deal with it. </em> </p><p>So. No way to work on anything. No way to stand up, really, a fact only reinforced as Murderface settled firmly across the tops of his shoes with a grumbling series of meows.</p><p>“Do <em> not </em> urinate on those,” Charles said warningly, and heard another few soft grumbles. Toki mewed softly near his ear, like a giggle, and draped himself over the top of the couch against the back of Charles’ neck. </p><p>He wasn’t sure which one of them started it but, before long, all five cats were purring. It was a bit like being boxed in by big trucks on all sides on a multi-lane highway, only nicer. Warm and, as long as everyone stayed put, actually quite comfortable. </p><p>It had been a while since the last time he’d had an afternoon off. Charles was the sort of person who was either working or unconscious, so having nothing to do whilst surrounded by death-metal-musicians-turned-snoozing-felines, he gradually slipped into boredom, then a light doze, and then a nap of his own. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>It’s okay Charles, I woke up to the same thing this morning. (Some cats just groom louder than others.)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Charles woke to a strange sound. He stretched slightly, feeling that he’d slumped over onto his side in the first decent sleep in weeks, and tried to place what he was hearing. It sounded . . . wet. </p><p>After a moment, he opened one eye. First of all, he wasn’t sure where his glasses were; he distinctly remembered falling asleep with them still on. Second, there was a tortico cat on the couch cushion in front of his face, casually licking its own—</p><p>He snapped the eye shut again. “Murderface, <em> please </em> do that somewhere else. Anywhere else, ah, would be fine. . . .” </p><p>The noise stopped, and Murderface jumped down from the couch with a disgruntled, “Mrow!”</p><p>That wasn’t to say Charles was left alone. The slight, well-distributed pressure on his hip was the Toki cat with the fu manchu face markings loafing on him. Nathan was curled loosely and pressed against Charles’ stomach, with one big paw lazily resting on the missing glasses—someone must have pawed them off his face while he’d slept or something. Cats did stuff like that, right? Like pushing water glasses off of tables and so on?</p><p>He reached for the glasses. Squinting, he could just make out Nathan’s claws flexing around the frames before deciding, magnanimously, to move his paw and allow Charles to take them and put them on. </p><p>“What, ah, time is it,” he muttered to himself, and checked his watch. When he saw the time he jerked into the first stage of sitting up, tipping Toki from his hip and onto Pickles, who’d been curled up behind his bent knees where he hadn’t noticed the ginger cat before. This caused a brief scuffle. “Hey,” Charles snapped, “take it somewhere else! No fighting on me, I mean—Pickles, <em> I mean it</em>.”</p><p>After shooing the cats away he took a moment to stretch properly, because unfortunately he wasn’t getting any younger and sleeping on a couch hadn’t done him any more favors than dozing off at his desk usually did. Nathan, who had been napping facing away from the couch, contorted around to look at him upside down. </p><p>“Stop showing off,” Charles muttered, and Nathan responded with a yawn, showing all his teeth. </p><p>There was a small table by the door that was piled with bags and cans of cat food; he went to it and found five black bowls with blunt spikes and shiny red pentagrams on the inside. A note taped to one explained that they were slow feeder bowls, recommended by the vet after hearing about Dethklok’s eating habits as humans. Another note on one of the smaller food bags suggested doling out several of the treats inside to each cat with every meal, to help keep their teeth clean. Apparently they were called “greenies.” These ones were catnip flavored. </p><p>He glanced over to a far corner of the room, where the Klokateers had set up a planter and green patch the size of an inflatable kiddie pool. Pickles and Skwisgaar were rolling around in the expanse of plants, with Toki just about to jump in too. </p><p>Yeah. Catnip flavor would be an easy sell. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Don't mind me, I'm just here spitballing about cats.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Feeding the cats was a circus. By the second time a meal hour came around, they knew the drill and swarmed around his ankles as soon as he took a step towards the food table. They popped up against his legs and meowed pathetically while he filled each bowl equally. To distract them while he put them down on the floor, Charles tossed a big handful of greenies towards the center of the room and let them scramble for treats, then dutifully shepherded them towards separate bowls when the treats ran out and they started trotting back. From there, if one cat finished early and tried to switch to an already occupied bowl, he swooped in, picked up the cat that had already eaten his share, and set him on a nearby tower and received various levels of glare and pleading kitten-eyes. </p><p>It was better once he remembered to get the laser pointer out first; they seemed less competitive after scrambling back and forth and in circles around the room following a red dot until eventually only Toki had enough stamina to keep going. </p><p>Outside of meal time, the other four tended to hole up wherever they’d each staked out as a favorite spot, cleaning themselves or just lazing around contentedly, but Toki usually made it his business to strut back and forth across Charles’ lap demanding attention and face rubs. His tail was always held highest when the others (especially Skwisgaar) were off somewhere else, and he had very definite ideas about how he wanted to be petted that Charles still had yet to decipher. </p><p>The thing was, Charles was outnumbered. Klokateers came and went regularly to change the litter boxes and clean up the occasional messes (usually Murderface’s), but they were transitory. Charles was one man dealing with five cats, and there was almost always one or two of them nearby demanding his attentiveness. </p><p>So basically . . . about the same as being a manager. It reminded him a bit of the days before the financial empire had begun to build up and take up more and more of his time; back when his main responsibility was direct musician-wrangling and keeping the band happy. </p><p>There were occasional times when all five were napping and he was able to check up on how things outside the room were going. Luckily, the system of hierarchy he’d established over the past decade was holding up nicely, and everyone he had delegated different sections of his workload to was handling things competently and efficiently. He hardly found any mistakes to correct. This felt both satisfying and oddly disappointing. </p><p>But there were times that almost made up for it. Glancing over the back of the couch and seeing all five of them sitting in a rough circle and grooming between their back legs industriously was not one of them, but seeing all five chilling together in the catnip planter together was. The first time he saw Skwisgaar hold Toki in place with one imperious paw and vigorously demonstrate how to clean behind his ears <em> properly </em> was. (Until it went in an inevitable ‘lick lick lick <em> bite’ </em> direction.) Witnessing various cats get into good-natured scuffles—wrestling and rolling around with play bites and minimal bunny kicking, <em> without </em> hissing or yowling—was. And hell, every time Charles saw Nathan cat propped up on the lip of the litterbox on his front paws and stretching majestically so he could show off while taking a shit, he had to choke down an actual laugh. </p><p>They had favorite toys. Murderface preferred the long feather boa on a string. Skwisgaar and Toki were best at laser pointer chase, though the former was a sprinter and the latter built to pull ahead in the long run. Nathan liked anything he could wrap his front legs around and kick to death, and everyone else beware of getting in his way while he was doing that because he <em> would </em> roll into you. Pickles, naturally, went nuts for anything with catnip in it; especially the compressed catnip on a string, which was the only toy he refused to share. </p><p>Half the time Charles sat down on the couch for more than fifteen minutes, he found himself surrounded by purring furballs. And slowly, slowly, he was starting to get used to it.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It was Charles’ sincere personal belief that Rome hadn’t been build in a day purely because of inefficient management.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The reason Charles had so much experience with falling asleep at his desk was because his apartment was not on Mordhaus grounds. He had resisted moving in with the band for years, for obvious reasons: for one, if they knew where he slept, they could and would end up pestering him at literally all hours. At least if it was just over the phone he could ignore it unless it was an emergency. </p><p>His resolve had lasted about ten minutes into this unexpected cat-sitting interlude. The room Dethklok had been contained in didn't even have a bathroom. </p><p>But it did have a closet, which allowed their extremely efficient in-Haus construction team to come in from the opposite direction and cannibalize some of the nearby rooms into a sizable bedroom with an en-suite. Once they and the in-Haus interior decorators were done, all Charles had to do was open the adjoining door and pass through a closet-sized hallway into his own personal suite. </p><p>It was his sincere personal belief that Rome hadn’t been build in a day purely because of inefficient management. </p><p>The cats milled excitedly around his ankles as he approached the door, and stampeded ahead of him as soon as he opened it. He followed, chuckling, and surveyed his new domain with satisfied approval. The staggered, irregular shelving wouldn’t have been his first choice, but while they were still clear of books they would make for great “cat highways,” according to his research on YouTube. A randomized, motion-activated  laser pointer machine had been custom-built into a far wall. Sisal rope was wound around the legs of all the furniture for scratching purposes. It was perfect; a kitty paradise. </p><p>A plaintive meow and a chorus of hisses drew his attention to the king-sized bed, where all five cats were in various stages of fighting each other to claim it as their territory. </p><p>“Hey,” Charles said sharply. Five sets of ears snapped towards his direction, and some of the action slowed. (Nathan and Murderface seemed the most intent on still brawling, with Pickles and Toki making occasional swats at random towards anyone who rolled near them. Skwisgaar was already sitting back and licking his ruffled fur back into place.) “I have enough doors at my disposal now that I can separate all of you if I have to.”</p><p>Murderface jumped off the mattress and started scratching angrily at one of the bedposts. </p><p>Nathan rolled over to stare at him like he’d grown a second head, then yawned hugely to show that he <em> didn’t </em> care and <em> wasn’t </em>stopping because he’d been told to but because he was bored. Apparently agreeing, Pickles plopped down in a lazy bun against the bigger, blacker cat’s back and seemed to go immediately to sleep. </p><p>Toki lept at Skwisgaar and chased him into range of the laser machine, which promptly distracted them. </p><p>There. <em>Now</em> it was perfect. </p>
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